HERE AND THERE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3003, 4 October 1911, Page 87

HERE AND THERE.

A New Use for Criminals. — A startling suggestion as to the way in which the punishment of gross offenders may be turned to the advantage of mankind, is put forward by Mr Hugh S. K. Elliot in the August Nineteenth Century and After. It is that criminals should be used, where desirable, for purposes of scientific experimentation. He points out that the splendid achievements of modern physiology and medicine are largely the result of experiments on living animals; and one of the greatest difficulties in the way of further progress has been the impossibility of making experiments on human beings. He supposes that a man has (been convicted of a particularly brutal criminal assault on a woman, and that at the same time an important discovery towards the cure, of malignant disease seems possible by inoculation experiments. In such a case he would have the convict Inoculated- in order that men of science fjiay make the observations which promise jo be followed by untold benefit to the race. "Is it," he asks, "more normal or more humane that the penalties inflicted on the criminal should be penalties useless to soaiety rather than penalties useful to society? Can we reconcile it to our conscience to allow thousands and thousands of our best citizens to be tormented and to 6ucciumjb to this frightful disease merely because we have not the nerve to try experiments upon one or two heartless wretches, who do not deserve our slightest consideration ?" Mr Elliot holds that, with, human vivisection, the deterrent effects would be far greater, and the pain inflicted far lees, than in the case of penal servitude. Finally, he contends that by hia suggestion the criminal would be made to render back to society benefits equivalent to injiiries he had inflicted on it. He claims "that the proposal has, too, something in the way of precedent to support it. It appears that in the reign of George I the law officers of the Crown gave it as their opinion that the King could lawfully.grant a pardon to a malefactor under sentence of death, on condition that he should suffer himself to" be inoculated with smallpox. Not long ago a Filipino prisoner was infected with dysentery by ingestion of cultures of the dysentery bacillus. Mr Elliot's views are not novel, and have even, been put forward in Australia, but they quite run counter to public sentiment.

—Heiress Who Eloped with a —Chauffeur.— "Society Fools" is the designation used to express her contempt for "America's Four Hundred" s>y Mrs Jack Geraghty, the daughter of Mr Amos Tuck French, a New York banker, who eloped recently .with a handsome chauffeur* Mrs Geraghty, while caressing a £4OO pup, chatted in her humble home with a group of interviewers l , telling them, how she had long ago determined not to marry a man in her own set. "Their -minds," she said, "are either empty or so filled with moneymakdng schemes as to render them tiresome. - Rarely you meet with a real man among the members of our plutocratic society. Can the world' blame me for giving up the social sphere which smiles approval on the marriage of Colonel Astor to a girl- younger than his son, and condemns my marriage with the man I love ? Why, I would rather live in a kennel with Jack than in a palace with some society fool, and that is what I wrote to mamma in announcing my wedding." Mrs Geraghty assured interviewers of her j&bility to cook, sew, and attend to the multifarious details of the humble household. "I began to study these things," she said, "two years ago, as soon as I made up my mind to marry Jack." Tl.e bride, whom her relatives' still style Miss French, was wearing the same white dress in which she ran away, but she she has no doubt her family will' eventually forward her the rest of her wardrobe. —The Army as a Profession.—

The army, like the Established Church, is suffering as a ".profession" mainly because it is no longer regarded by wealthy middle class families as a convenient avenue to social distinction. Wealth unaided can now make its way readily enough anywhere. There is still, to be sure, a military caste which continues to hold its remaining privileges by the selfsacrificing device of making it impossible for any "outsider" to serve as an officer in a crack regiment unless he possesses, or receives from his. relatives, a private income of at least double the amount of his meagre pay. The War Office is admittedly worried by its difficulty in securing young men to qualify for commands. It confesses that there are 1553 vacancies in the regular forces, and at the same time no fewer than 1654 officers are wanted in the Territorial Army.' The number of applicants at Sandhurst for cadet ships is only one-third of what it used to be. The military authorities tried some time ago to attract more candidates by reducing the stringency of the examination teste. The result has been small, and still further concessions are offered; with the addition of prize cadetships at both Woolwich and Sandhurst, which will reduce the maintenance expenditure of a cadet by nearly half during his studies. He will also reoeive a grant of £65 for outfit when ho secure® a commission in the army. —A Socialist Senator. — An amusing episode is related by a Brussels newspaper with regard to a newlyelected Belgian Socialist senator. This senator, who appears to be an extremist, found it out of keeping with his "advanced" ideas to wear the official uniform of the members of the Upper House when invited to an official function. "A uniform," he exclaimed; "this is not in conformity with sound democratic principles." Being invited to an official dinner at the palace, the senator declared that he would either wear evening clothes or decline to attend. He was careful. however, first to inquire of the Grand

Marghal whether this dreea would be admissible, and- was tofltd that so great was the esteem of King Albert for his talents that he would be welcomed whatever his attire. Accordingly the senator accepted the Royal invitation, and arrived at the palace m evening dress without the least decoration. He alighted, however, from a beautiful limousine, on the doors of which his monograni was blazoned in golden letters 2in high. —American Stage Denounced. — The American Federation of Catholic Societies, with headqiwrters at Denver, Colorado, has addressed a letter, signed by a long list of archbishops and bishops, of cities, from> the Atlantic to the Pacific, to all theatrical managers, denouncing the American stage as a meaiace to the welfare of the nation, and asking all Catholics to aid in a crusade for the suppression of plays which are "debauching the minds and hearts of theatre-goers." The letter declares that managers producing such plays like "Salome," "The Soul Kiss," "The Easiest Way," "La Samaritaine," and "The "Girl from Rector's," are menacing public morality. The importation of risky German and French farces, comedies like "The Foolish Wrgin," "The Woman Passes," and similar playe, "exhibits a morbid standard of moral looseness, and if no check is put on such productions we shall ere long have the lamentable condition of the French stage duplicated in America."